He left the room, and there was a spring in his step that hadn’t been there before. He had phone calls to make. By the time he’d reached the ground floor of Senate House, the old man’s tears were forgotten.
For the first time in weeks she felt like music. She stared out of the grimy window of the small attic apartment at the world below. She still felt its energy and excitement, but her superior confidence had faded. Artie Mullins had done what she’d expected and taken Cass Jones from them, and at the time she’d been pleased: she could keep track of him without having to answer his questions – and the one thing she’d learned about them was that they always had questions – and then find him again when the time was right. That was before they’d started weakening.
Over the past fortnight or so, these strange days and nights all blurring into one, she’d found she lacked the energy to play. She hadn’t extended beyond herself. She’d stayed small. Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, while her old friend muttered in his fevered sleep, she felt as if this hectic, harsh world was consuming her. The possibility that they might not be able to get back hadn’t crossed their minds – not even just theirs; she was just the emissary, after all, and he was her companion – but his mind. Or perhaps it was just a risk he had been prepared to take. If they didn’t return, perhaps that was information enough.
Frost covered the glass on the outside like a network of dead veins. There was so much hidden beauty here that sometimes it astounded her. She let out a long breath and watched the condensation form. She felt its damp heat on her face and ignored the sweet scent of rot it carried with it. She had become used to that now, as she had to the flecks of blood that appeared between her paling gums. But perhaps, she decided, as she turned away from the glass and headed over to the bed in the corner, all was not lost. Events were finally moving forward.
She sat on the edge of the bed and pushed a loose strand of her red hair from her face before leaning forward to kiss her companion’s cheek. His face burned. When his eyes opened there was still some humour there, even though he was no longer able to play his violin, not even on his very best days. She wasn’t sure which was drier, her lips or his cheek. She squeezed his hand.
‘Have you found the way home, Gabbi?’ he asked. He had been the one to try when he’d first sickened; he would go back and report and she would stay and wait to answer the so-faint call that had brought them all this way. He hadn’t gone, though. The Walkways were lost in the Chaos, and that had almost sucked him in. She had tried after that, with more urgency as his efforts added to his weakening state and she could see her old friend crumbling away, but there was no way out. They had found their way here, but there was no way back. Someone had locked the exit door. Perhaps that was about to change.
‘Not yet, but I think we will be home by Christmas.’ She smiled. He almost managed a laugh at that play on all the television shows that they had watched on the small machine that came with the flat.
‘He’s awake.’ She squeezed his hand again and felt sudden life flood his system with the excitement of her news. She’d felt it herself. ‘He called to me – it was so loud and clear it woke me. He knows we’re here; he’s been listening. He knows we’re sick.’
Her companion, still looking like the tramp he had so recently played, pulled himself up into a sitting position against his sweaty pillow.
‘He’s really awake?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I understand it all now – why the boy is so important.’
‘Do we go to him now?’ His eyes were wide, as if he’d never expected the news to come. ‘It’s been such a long time.’
‘He’s not ready yet. He’ll tell us when and where.’
‘And then we can go home?’
‘And then we can go home.’ She smiled as she spoke, but her heart twinged. She hoped they could go home. ‘I feel stronger already though,’ she added. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Play me some music,’ he said after they’d sat for a moment in silence. ‘There should always be music.’
And so she did.
He moves through the bitter night, his feet pounding against the pavement, thumping out his rage with every stride. His anger makes him stronger than he’s been in a long time and he fights the urge to become everything that he is; to shake off this tiny, frail body. But he can’t afford the wasted energy; he’d only have to pay the price later. These things have become a consideration.
He pauses on the Embankment and looks out at the other side of the city carved off by the midnight river. Lights twinkle merrily, and further ahead another bridge is lit defiantly against the night. It is beautiful, and the thought feeds his bitterness. He prefers the bitterness to the fear; the fear makes him feel even weaker than his decaying body. The fear makes him feel like one of them, and that he will not abide.
He turns his back on the water and faces the biting wind. His anger at the futility of their situation was fading. He would recover himself and start planning – tomorrow. He wouldn’t give up – he never had. But for tonight, he would let his power be felt in other ways. It was time to spread his word. For the first time that evening, he is smiling.
Cass was in the dream again. It wasn’t a room, as such; it was a space somewhere between: a place where people became trapped. Cass was pressed against the pale wall, held back by a pressure he didn’t understand, and in front of him his dead brother and dead father stood facing each other. His father was burning, the fire engulfing him from head to feet, his thin hair waving upright in the orange and red flames as if he were under water. Cass could see him; his skin sizzled slightly, but it stayed pale, and his mouth hung open, as if trying to produce words that wouldn’t come. He didn’t look at Cass but stared directly at Christian.
His younger brother was wearing the dark trousers and pale blue shirt he’d been wearing the night he died. His tie was loosened. His shiny black brogues had spots of blood on them. He stood a few feet away from their burning father, the heat lifting his blond fringe as if he were standing in a breeze. Tears ran in streams down his pale face and evaporated on his cheeks. A drop of blood fell from the arm by his side and landed on his shoe. The sound made Cass’ eardrums ache.
Between his father and his brother, a Rastafarian teenager sat cross-legged, holding a baby. The teenager had no face, but he was staring at Cass from somewhere within the dried bloody mess under his hair. He cradled the baby carefully.
Cass tried to take a step forward, but something pulled him back and he gasped as cold fingers pinched his skin. It wasn’t a wall behind him at all; it was the dead, and they were tugging at him. Hands came up through the floor and pulled him down until he was lying on his back. He called to Christian and his father to help him, but they didn’t move. He didn’t exist to them. He wasn’t there.
Cold bodies swarmed over him and he knew who they were; he recognised their touch. Kate, Claire, Jessica, the poor boy they had thought was Luke, the people Solomon had killed, the student suicides, the doctors, the Jackson and Miller boys. There were so many, and they all blamed him.
He tried to scream, but fingers crammed into his mouth and tugged at his tongue. They were all over him now, pulling his clothes away, eager to tear at his flesh. He caught flashes of hair and angry eyes amidst the rotting skin. For a moment, the ceiling above flashed into view: twinkling eyes within a ruddy face framed with silver hair stared down at him. Cass almost laughed in his terror. Mr Bright was looking down at them all, overseeing the game, as always.
The man lying on the ceiling winked. As he did so, the baby, out of sight, began to cry.
And the dead swarmed.
Chapter Nine
It was a strange farewell. After two months under his supervision, Cass still didn’t feel he knew Mac any better than he had on day one, and he figured maybe that was how he liked it. If Cass got nicked, all he could say about the big, bald man was that, despite the nickname, he wasn’t Scottish.
They’d got up early, and Mac and a yo
unger man Cass didn’t know had driven him to leafy Crouch Hill. Mac pulled the car over on the corner of a wide boulevard.
‘First left. Number forty-five. He’s expecting you.’ Mac got out with Cass and gave him a nod and a wink and an envelope with what looked like at least a couple of grand in cash wedged inside.
‘From Mr Mullins. To get you started.’
Cass took it. He was in no position to be proud – the day for pride was long gone as far as Artie Mullins was concerned. He owed the man, and he owed him big. Between Mullins and Father Michael, Cass felt slightly overwhelmed. Both had helped him, and it was more than just giving him money, or a place to stay: more importantly, both believed in his innocence. The dichotomy between the two men’s natures wasn’t lost on him. He didn’t deserve such faith from either of them. Cass’d always felt he existed in the grey area, but recently he couldn’t help but think that the grey was getting darker, and whatever goodness he’d once had inside him was getting swallowed up until all the goodness in his life had gone and he was just left with vengeance. Perhaps that would change when he had Luke back. Perhaps that was why finding the boy had become so important to him. Luke was his last hope for redemption.
Redemption is the key. His brother’s last words echoed in his head, and the meaning in them still rang true.
He nodded goodbye to Mac and waited on the kerb until the car had disappeared before starting to walk, a small holdall of clothes over his good shoulder and carrying the battered suitcase that Father Michael had brought him in his right hand. He thought of the big house in Muswell Hill, not so far from here, that had been his home for so long, and the new place in St John’s Wood, and all the money that he’d accumulated in the bank. None of it mattered any more; he was reduced to what he was carrying – and within an hour he’d have a whole new identity too. Maybe he should have felt more like a phoenix, but he didn’t. He picked up his pace and headed for Number 45.
In the movies, forgers worked out of tiny backroom offices. They were generally skinny, nervy types who looked like they’d been bullied in school. If this one was anything to go by, that stereotype was well out of date.
‘Before you ask,’ the man smiled as he led Cass into the large open-plan kitchen, ‘this isn’t my house.’ He hadn’t introduced himself and neither had Cass. Given the nature of the man’s business, current names were irrelevant.
‘It belongs to an overseas corporation, rented through a variety of holding companies.’ He gave a wide, friendly smile over his shoulder. ‘Should you find yourself in an unfortunate situation with the police, sending them here will do you no favours. They won’t find anything.’
‘I understand your concern,’ Cass said, ‘but if the police catch me, then I don’t think giving them a forger – however good you are – would do me much good.’
‘No, you’re probably right.’ He poured two coffees from the filter jug on the side and slid over a jug of cream and a pot of sugar. ‘Help yourself.’
Cass did, watching the man warily. He was older than Cass, mid- to late forties, but his face was chubbier, and smooth. He had the look of a man who had had an easy life; he could pass easily for someone involved in any number of respectable professions; Cass would’ve put money on him having a membership to some exclusive golf club somewhere in the suburbs. Mind you, he still might. It just went to show that you could never judge a book by its cover.
‘Feel free to smoke.’
Cass did, and the forger pulled an ashtray from a cupboard before taking a large brown envelope from one of the kitchen drawers. He lit a cigarette for himself and inhaled deeply before tipping the contents out between them. Watching him, Cass wondered how much of this man’s exterior was a construct. He smoked like an expert, and held the butt between his thumb and forefinger. There was no hint of East End in his smooth voice, but Cass thought there must have been at some point. This forger had created a forgery of himself.
‘I’m pleased with these – some of my best work, I think. Of course, the passport itself is kosher, which helps. Don’t ask how, but it is. Take a look. It’s yours now.’
Cass picked up the passport and flicked to the back. The man was right – to his untrained eye it looked exactly like his real passport, sitting back in his bedroom drawer in St John’s Wood. He looked at the name typed next to the photo Artie Mullins had taken only days before and his heart thumped. Charles Silver.
‘Who picked the name?’
Charles. Charlie. The last time he’d had a false identity he’d been Charlie Sutton. His stomach lurched slightly as the years tumbled away, bringing that time and this together, folding his existence so the two moments touched. It was just a name. A long stream of smoke escaped through his gritted teeth.
‘It’s not a matter of picking the name.’ He looked up. ‘It’s about which identity fits. You have a problem with the name?’
Cass shook his head. ‘I can live with it.’ According to his new passport and driving licence he was also forty-one. He could live with that too. He hadn’t planned on having a big fortieth birthday, so bypassing it altogether was probably a good thing. He was also a business analyst, whatever that was.
‘Thanks for these.’ Cass tucked the driving licence into his wallet and zipped the passport into the inside pocket of his jacket.
‘Mr Mullins is always a pleasure to work with. Pass on my regards if you see him.’
Cass nodded, but didn’t speak; who knew when he’d be seeing Artie again?
He finished his cigarette and drained the rest of his coffee before getting to his feet.
‘Do you want me to call you a minicab?’
‘No,’ Cass said, ‘thanks. I’ll walk.’ Walk to where was a different question. The first thing he needed to do was find somewhere to stay: a bedsit or cheap motel, from where he could plan on how to get Luke back.
‘Well then, goodbye and good luck, Mr Silver.’
Cass shook the smooth hand and headed back to Crouch End. He’d walk up to Highgate and jump on the tube there. Letting his head fall forward and his shoulders slump – any cameras he passed would have a harder job getting a clear image of him – he started to walk.
He had walked barely ten paces when the doors of a parked car ahead flew open and four men climbed out. Cass barely registered the visible gun within one man’s overcoat before the cloth was over his mouth and the nauseatingly sweet smell of chloroform overwhelmed him. He saw the boot of the car being opened. He was out cold by the time it shut over him.
Chapter Ten
Mat Blackmore had been getting edgier as the trial drew closer, and he hadn’t exactly started from a place of calm. Sometimes, despite the months that had passed, he still found it hard to believe that this whole shitstorm had come down on them at all. Gary Bowman had promised him it was all fine, that they wouldn’t get caught – and then everything went to shit, with the two boys getting killed, and the Christian Jones family murder – it was a mess, a bloody mess, and he was stuck right in the middle of it.
He rocked slightly on the side of his narrow cell bed and rubbed his face. His eyes were gritty from lack of sleep. He hadn’t had one good night in months – so much for the old adage about the guilty sleeping like babies; it sure as fuck wasn’t true in his case. But then, it wasn’t so much his guilt keeping him awake – that saved itself for his dreams. It was the fear that left him staring wide-eyed into the shadows of his cell until the early hours of the morning.
There was plenty for him to be afraid of. He’d sold out just about everyone he could – Gary Bowman, other Paddington coppers, Macintyre’s contacts, anyone he could think of – to try and get his charges reduced. He was staring at the death penalty, his lawyers had been clear about that from the outset, and he needed to do whatever he could to get that down to life.
His stomach felt greasy as it tied itself in a fresh knot, as it did a thousand times a day, as the memory of Claire May’s face as she tumbled downwards assaulted him. He could see shock and
realisation fighting with the dread in her wide eyes. Those eyes were with him, everywhere. Sometimes, in his dreams, time had rolled back and she was alive and well and they were naked together in bed. In those dreams he could feel the warm, wet inside of her, and smell her skin. For a moment it was wonderful, and then her limbs would become cold and stiff and he look down to find himself fucking her dead and broken body.
Most days he just wanted to cry, and today was no exception. How could it be, that after everything that had happened, he was the only one facing a first-degree murder charge? If he didn’t feel so sick he’d almost laugh. Bowman must be laughing at him, that was for sure – after all, Bowman’s lawyers had been quick to point out that their client hadn’t actually killed anyone. He couldn’t be held responsible for Macintyre’s actions, or Blackmore’s. Bowman might be facing a long life behind bars, but at least he didn’t have the gallows hanging over him.
Sweat pricked on Mat’s palms. His brain was in such a state of frenzy most of the time that he felt he was going slightly mad. Maybe if he went fully mad that wouldn’t be so bad – they couldn’t execute a mad man, could they? He almost giggled. They must all have been mad, to get so carried away, and now every time he went out on recreation or to the library he could feel eyes on him – not only was he a bent copper, he was also a grass. No one gave a shit that he’d grassed Bowman, but the underworld contacts he’d given up? They all had friends on the inside. Someone would get him one of these days; he knew that much.
The Chosen Seed: The Dog-Faced Gods Book Three (DOG-FACED GODS TRILOGY) Page 6